History Spotlight, 1/20

On this day in 1801, President John Adams appointed John Marshall as the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Marshall would serve for over 30 years and is responsible for many of the ways the Constitution is interpreted and the Supreme Court operates even today.
For example, one of the first things Marshall changed was in the way the Court hands down decisions. Prior to Marshall, each Justice would write his own opinion and hand it down, similar to the way things work in Britain or Australia. Marshall changed it so that the Court would hand down a single opinion. Since Marshall was the Chief Justice, he was the one who got to write this opinion and got to influence the Court's direction.
Marshall also created the doctrine judicial review, which says that the Supreme Court can rule on (and perhaps strike down) laws that it feels aren't Constitutional. Most people today don't realize that power isn't in the Constitution somewhere (in the back, maybe) but it was Marshall who created it.
In the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic-Republicans defeated John Adams and the Federalists. Jefferson wasn't sworn in until March 4, 1801 and between the election and the inauguration, Adams and the Federalists still controlled Congress. They passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which created ten new federal level courts for Adams to fill with Federalists. The night before the inauguration Adams went through a flurry of appointments. A man named William Marbury was the recipient of one of these "Midnight Judge" appointments but he hadn't been delivered his commission by the time Jefferson was sworn in the next day. It was assumed that the commissions would be delivered by the incoming Sectretary of State, James Madison. Almost as soon as he was sworn in, Jefferson ordered the remaining undelivered commissions to be retracted. Without the official commissions the judges and justices of the peace were unable to start their jobs and, as far as Jefferson was concerned, it was problem solved.
Congress, now controlled by the Democratic-Republicans moved quickly to pass the Judiciary Act of 1802, which voided the Judiciary Act of 1801. The also canceled the impending Supreme Court term and postponed the next one for almost a year in order to delay a ruling on the constitutionality for all of these judiciary acts for as long as possible to allow them to become entrenched.
The upshot of the case was that Marbury got his commission, but more importantly, the Court ruled that the Judiciary Act of 1802 was unconstitutional and that the Supreme Court had the right to review laws that Congress passed.